Co-operation

This warm and sunny morning, Thomas and I walked up through Pittville Park to the Pump Room - once again gloriously uncluttered by marquees: his musician Godmother (Imogen Cooper) had kindly left us tickets for her recital with mezzo Christianne Stotijn.

What a lovely programme! A testing trio of Schubert songs was followed by Benjamin Britten's Winter Words. After the interval, a delicious Schubert Imo-promptu, and then two further cycles: more Britten and Mussorgsky. Finally, the bonne bouche - a song by Tchaikovsky.

I enthused about La Stotijn last time she was with us here, accompanied by Julius Drake (was it really four years ago?): my enthusiasm has increased after today's peaches and cream performance, particularly seeing and hearing the rapport she has with Imogen.

Chipping Campden Music Festival

We missed going to Campden for any music last year. The programme for this year's Festival is full of goodies, but most of them whilst I've been away walking. Last night, however, we went in order to catch a glimpse of Imogen Cooper, accompanying Kate Royal in Mozart's 'Ch'io mi scordi di te...', with the Festival Academy Orchestra under Thomas Hull. This was her third appearance at this year's Festival - she told us she'd enjoyed her stay in the town: it was good to hear she is lined up for next year's Cheltenham Festival, accompanying the Dutch mezzo, Christianne Stotijn. Campden generates an especially friendly atmosphere, and whilst the pews are pretty purgatorial, at least they aren't as claustrophobic as at Tetbury. Not bad woodwind playing from the Festival Orchestra either! But afterwards, not a chance of buying much-needed fish and chips, whether in Campden or Broadway! We found some chips eventually in Winchcombe - but they might have been bits of old shoe leather.

"... considerably advances global warming"

Last week, I enthused about Christianne Stotijn's recital in the Cheltenham Music Festival. Earlier this year, I now learn, a Times reporter described her as "in a class apart... delivers her songs with a lyrical glow that considerably advances global warming."

I had been reflecting since the Festival on its likely carbon footprint. Has any attempt been made to calculate this I wonder? In particular in terms of the transport of audience members and performers - like Ms. Stotijn, from Holland - to and from Cheltenham. Are international festivals sustainable in terms of climate change and peak oil? On the analagous issue of holidays abroad, I shall be listening to the Moral Maze tonight with some interest. Incidentally, hands up, my photograph was taken in Nicosia!

Festival finale

Although the Cheltenham Music Festival doesn't end till tomorrow night, I've been to my last event now - a performance by the Australian String Quartet this morning: they put across their compatriot, Peter Sculthorpe's Quartet no 8 well - an interesting piece - but overall did not appear quite to be in the medal category from where I was sitting. The competition has however been fierce in Cheltenham, these last 14 days. Perhaps they were a bit handicapped by playing with a guest cellist.

Last night there were a couple of hiccoughs at the end of Christianne Stotijn's recital, with Julius Drake, but overall that was definitely a medal performance: this 31-year-old mezzo certainly deserves to be going places: the opera stage, I'd hope, with a voice so full of drama and power to colour the phrases. "Das Mädchen fing zu weinen an," she sang in Mahler's celebrated Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen - and we could have wept too I guess, at that and also at other moments during the evening. Great stuff, and great too to be reminded of how difficult it is to sustain a recital of this intensity by the young singer's reluctantly-admitted frailty.

So, a big thank you to Meurig Bowen and to all those who have been responsible for providing us with such a musical feast during this year's Festival!